The Bethesda Blog announces the version 1.7 patch for the Windows edition of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is now available as a beta on Steam. They offer instructions on downloading the beta patch, and the following all-platform notes:

General memory and stability optimizations

Fixed crash related to new water shaders

Fixed rare crash related to dragon landings

Fixed logic error with loading screens from add-ons (Xbox 360)

Using vampiric grip and swimming no longer prevents swimming animation from playing afterwards

avianflu wrote on Jul 24, 2012, 07:23:"Point Lookout" for FO3 had a marvelous set of mini-stories if you read the texts along the way, and the swampy atmosphere was dead-on. I was surprised how good it was.

New Vegas was indeed better in terms of writing than FO3 but you have to agree that New Vegas (the city) itself was tiny and disappointingly so. In some ways New Vegas felt rushed to publication. C. Avellone is the key to what made NV good.

Point Lookout was great but man the bullet sponge enemies really marr an otherwise well designed area. I thought New Vegas the city was fairly well designed to be honest, I wasn't expecting a metropolis or something just due to the engine limitations. I like how they tied its surrounding areas into it. I think the bigger fault with NV was how poorly the content there scales if you do any side content along way to Vegas itself. By the time I got there I was a mini-god and I was just kinda doing things naturally as they came up.

Were you playing on Normal difficulty? With companion(s)? Casual mode? On Very Hard Hardcore, a lot of enemies remain very dangerous throughout the entire game (Deathclaws and cazadores come to mind). Having companions does make the game significantly easier, as they weren't balanced very well, but there are mods that nerf companions so you can enjoy their company without making the game too easy.

Im the opposite, I enjoyed Bethesda's Fallout 3 a lot more then Obsidian's Fallout NV.

Lemme guess: you liked FO3's setting more than NV's. That's pretty much the only argument people can come up with because NV is superior in almost every regard.

Is it sad that I kind of want Obsidian to shut down so the devs can go to Bethesda and handle all the writing and quest design? I love the big, open and incredibly detailed worlds that Bethesda creates but their writing is so, so bad.

The entire map in FO3 was far superior in terms of the amount of sheer detail gone in the entirety and NV just didn't have the same effect it was extremely barren even the main city was a huge let down.

I do agree with some people the writing was better in NV, but in the end of the day I do prefer the aesthetics of FO3.

Verno wrote on Jul 24, 2012, 09:58:Dawnguard is supposed to be pretty bad so I think the exclusivity just saved PC gamers money, worked out well

I'm bored. I'll probably get it anyway. I never was into the whole being a vampire thing in ES so wasn't too excited when this was announced. I could get into being a vampire hunter though. From what I read that's by far the better way to go with this DLC.

avianflu wrote on Jul 24, 2012, 07:23:New Vegas was indeed better in terms of writing than FO3 but you have to agree that New Vegas (the city) itself was tiny and disappointingly so.

Well, only in the way that most of the Bethesda games have been. Most of the cities in Skyrim, for example, are extremely small for "cities". My only real complaint about NV would be the amount that it was broken up (for consoles I assume). Had it had less loading areas, I think it would have been fine.

avianflu wrote on Jul 24, 2012, 07:23:"Point Lookout" for FO3 had a marvelous set of mini-stories if you read the texts along the way, and the swampy atmosphere was dead-on. I was surprised how good it was.

New Vegas was indeed better in terms of writing than FO3 but you have to agree that New Vegas (the city) itself was tiny and disappointingly so. In some ways New Vegas felt rushed to publication. C. Avellone is the key to what made NV good.

Point Lookout was great but man the bullet sponge enemies really marr an otherwise well designed area. I thought New Vegas the city was fairly well designed to be honest, I wasn't expecting a metropolis or something just due to the engine limitations. I like how they tied its surrounding areas into it. I think the bigger fault with NV was how poorly the content there scales if you do any side content along way to Vegas itself. By the time I got there I was a mini-god and I was just kinda doing things naturally as they came up.

"Point Lookout" for FO3 had a marvelous set of mini-stories if you read the texts along the way, and the swampy atmosphere was dead-on. I was surprised how good it was.

New Vegas was indeed better in terms of writing than FO3 but you have to agree that New Vegas (the city) itself was tiny and disappointingly so. In some ways New Vegas felt rushed to publication. C. Avellone is the key to what made NV good.

Soulburner wrote on Jul 24, 2012, 02:49:Regarding Fallout, I also believe New Vegas was brilliant. The writing, the dialogs, the side quests! Each companion had an interesting story and quests associated with them. The dialogs were engaging (with speech skill and some perks greatly influencing gameplay) and often funny.

While playing Skyrim, after I while I started noticing what's missing. The dialogs weren't any fun, including the dialog options. The speech skill was useless. Side quests were mostly rather uninspired. And I'm bored! And New Vegas... I keep returning to it and always find something cool. The DLCs were also pretty nice.

So yeah, Bethesda, please hire Obsidian to do Fallout 4. Maybe while Obsidian would work on Fallout 4, Bethesda could focus on the new Elder Scrolls game. That would be pretty good, wouldn't it?

I'd love to see another Obsidian Fallout game but an Obsidian Elder Scrolls game could be really interesting too. The ES series actually has a lot of interesting lore. Now it just needs compelling character and quest writing.

Regarding Fallout, I also believe New Vegas was brilliant. The writing, the dialogs, the side quests! Each companion had an interesting story and quests associated with them. The dialogs were engaging (with speech skill and some perks greatly influencing gameplay) and often funny.

While playing Skyrim, after I while I started noticing what's missing. The dialogs weren't any fun, including the dialog options. The speech skill was useless. Side quests were mostly rather uninspired. And I'm bored! And New Vegas... I keep returning to it and always find something cool. The DLCs were also pretty nice.

So yeah, Bethesda, please hire Obsidian to do Fallout 4. Maybe while Obsidian would work on Fallout 4, Bethesda could focus on the new Elder Scrolls game. That would be pretty good, wouldn't it?

Considering the vast numbers of bugs in Skyrim this patch is a disappointment. Compare list this with the patch list of the community developed patch. Bethesda is far behind the industry in this regard and I think it is to their detriment. They still sell Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3 and those games are abandonware despite needing some patching of many issues. This is unfortunate for us who do enjoy their games.

People like dungeon crawling(ie sewer crawling). Which FO3 had a lot of, NV didn't have much of that. I admit I liked that too, but there wasn't a lot of it in NV. Though as Chris Avellone said on the topic, there's alot of places in the US southwest for the next installment, and even more that people haven't considered. I'd really love to see them do something in the Boneyard(LA), or heck even New Reno. Or both, there's really no shortage of material.

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken